WoolWeenies Club

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Ugh...just thinking back to a year or two ago- does anyone else besides me remember the news story about the "faux fur" coats sold in high fashion department stores in NYC? It was in the news for a week or so.

I remember it was a big deal in NYC, and people were outraged at the time.
Seems there were lots of designer brands of coats getting sold in all the fancy NY stores like Bloomingdales, Macy's, Lord&Taylor's, etc, --"faux fur" coats that were quite convincing copies of fur. They were all labeled faux fur. They were being sold under various designer brands, in many different styles and lines. Apparently someone from Peta became suspicious and Peta bought several in different places and had them tested. Turns out they were all REAL fur, from China, and what's more they were all DOG fur coats. The Chinese manufacturers had the coats all labeled as "synthetic faux fur", and apparently the NY designers had no idea what they really were. They were pulled from the stores, needless to say.
Anyone else remember this?

[mimitabby]

oh Lisa, that's disgusting. I hadn't heard that one. My DH bought me a coat with a faux fur on the lining. the first thing I did was pull a few hairs out and burn them (they melted! ) because if it was real hair I wasn't going to want to wear it (Because it looked like dog)
so hair burns and stinks badly,
polyesters kind of melt and burn and have a very different smell.

I do that with yarn too. What's confusing is mixes of wool and acrylic. burns, stinks, melts?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Oh, I did find one article about it:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2862608

Unbelievably, in China, it's common to "harvest" fur by quickly skinning the animal alive.

[mimitabby]

Lisa, there are groups berating the use of wool because wool ranchers are cruel to their sheep. who knew?
I still love wool and i eat lamb too.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Yes I know what you mean. I eat meat (except for beef) and wear leather and wool, etc. I try to not buy meat from large commercial meat producers. (see http://themeatrix.com/ )
But at least here in the US we have laws about animal cruelty that can be enforced- no such laws even exist in China, where inhumane and cruel treatment of animals is a casually accepted part of daily life.

[Brandi]

I just bought a new pair of smartwool stripped socks! I love all my smartwool socks. They hard to resist. Got three brand new pairs off of ebay a couple weeks ago for about $25.00. they were a close out color. Orange my favorite!

[mimitabby]

oh, wow, smartwool on EBAY! ORANGE???!?!?!?
(my favorite too)

[GLC1968]

I think I need to admit to being a wool weenie.

I've always touted the benefits of wool, but until recently, I would wear wool sweaters (my favorite all winter) with cotton underneath.

My conversion started last winter when the only jerseys I liked wearing in the winter (while biking) were my wool ones. They just worked SO much better than all my synthetic ones! A month ago, we went for a mountain bike ride and I threw on an Ibex crew (lightweight) that I had. It was perfect for the ride. Then, for whatever reason, I kept it on for the rest of the day running errands and such. One day and I'm a convert.

I've since bought a few more lightweight wool tops (and dug out a couple of ones I bought last year) and that's all I wear on the weekends, biking or not! I just told my husband that I need more wool tops to wear and lo and behold, there was an icebreaker style on SAC this morning (I bought 2).

OMG, I'm addicted! They are particularly suitable here in the south in the winter where the temps change all day (30's in the am, 60's at noon, 40's at night) and where the sun is hot but the breeze is not.

Now I need to know, does anyone make wool bras?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Lisa, there are groups berating the use of wool because wool ranchers are cruel to their sheep. who knew?
I still love wool and i eat lamb too.

In case anyone is interested- the Ibex company participates in this New Zealand program: http://zque.co.nz/ which manages production of NZ wool using methods that are socially and environmentally responsible, with a big emphasis on humane treatment of animals.